[meteorite-list] Outer Space Meets The Australian Outback And A Bluff Is Born

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:22:40 2004
Message-ID: <200306171835.LAA26468_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/06/17/1055828328658.html

Outer space meets outback and a bluff is born
By Stephen Cauchi
The Age (Australia)
June 18, 2003

Photo of Gosses Bluff]
Picture: AFP
A satellite shot of Gosse Bluff, in the Northern Territory.

The deep impact of a meteorite strike - the stuff of science-fiction - has
been reality many times in Australia's history. A stunning photo from the
International Space Station of Gosse Bluff in the Northern Territory,
taken two days ago, is a potent reminder that space is a dangerous place.

About 142 million years ago, a one-kilometre-wide meteorite or comet,
travelling dozens of kilometres per second, slammed into Australia. It
tunnelled hundreds of metres underground in a fraction of a second before
detonating in an explosion that would dwarf the most powerful nuclear bomb.

The resultant crater was more than 20 kilometres wide, enough to swallow a
good chunk of Melbourne. The ground in the crater's centre instantly
rebounded, forming within seconds a circular peak of hills more than four
kilometres wide.

A cursory look at the moon reveals countless such craters, as fresh as the
day they were born in that air-free environment. But on Earth, wind and
rain take their toll over millions of years. All that is left of the Gosse
Bluff crater is the circular peak of hills in the centre. The rest,
including the rim, has eroded, and is visible only as a ghostly halo.

Photographed by astronauts on the station nearly 400 kilometres above, it
can also be shot by more down-to-Earth visitors on a day trip from Alice
Springs.

Gosse Bluff is one of the more studied Australian impact craters but not
the most famous.

That honour goes to Wolf Creek crater in Western Australia, a
well-preserved kilometre-wide specimen with a rim towering over the
countryside.

Also in central Australia are the Henbury craters, a collection of about
a dozen small craters, and the well-preserved, 175-metre-wide Boxhole
crater. The latter was formed only about 40,000 years ago.

There were no Aborigines in Australia to witness the Gosse Bluff impact,
but the mythology of the local indigenous people regarding the creation
of "Tnorala", as they call it, is surprisingly accurate.

When a group of women danced across the sky (the Milky Way) one mother
put her baby in its wooden baby carrier.

It toppled over the edge of the dance floor, and crashed to Earth.
Received on Tue 17 Jun 2003 02:35:52 PM PDT